<h1><code ng:non-bindable="">form</code>
<span class="hint">(directive in module <code ng:non-bindable="">ng</code>
)</span>
</h1>
<div><a href="http://github.com/angular/angular.js/edit/master/src/ng/directive/form.js" class="improve-docs btn btn-primary">Improve this doc</a><h2 id="Description">Description</h2>
<div class="description"><p>Directive that instantiates
<a href="api/ng.directive:form.FormController"><code>FormController</code></a>.</p>

<p>If <code>name</code> attribute is specified, the form controller is published onto the current scope under
this name.</p>

<h3>Alias: <a href="api/ng.directive:ngForm"><code><code>ngForm</code></code></a></h3>

<p>In angular forms can be nested. This means that the outer form is valid when all of the child
forms are valid as well. However browsers do not allow nesting of <code>&lt;form&gt;</code> elements, for this
reason angular provides <a href="api/ng.directive:ngForm"><code><code>ngForm</code></code></a> alias
which behaves identical to <code>&lt;form&gt;</code> but allows form nesting.</p>

<h3>CSS classes</h3>

<ul>
<li><code>ng-valid</code> Is set if the form is valid.</li>
<li><code>ng-invalid</code> Is set if the form is invalid.</li>
<li><code>ng-pristine</code> Is set if the form is pristine.</li>
<li><code>ng-dirty</code> Is set if the form is dirty.</li>
</ul>

<h3>Submitting a form and preventing default action</h3>

<p>Since the role of forms in client-side Angular applications is different than in classical
roundtrip apps, it is desirable for the browser not to translate the form submission into a full
page reload that sends the data to the server. Instead some javascript logic should be triggered
to handle the form submission in application specific way.</p>

<p>For this reason, Angular prevents the default action (form submission to the server) unless the
<code>&lt;form&gt;</code> element has an <code>action</code> attribute specified.</p>

<p>You can use one of the following two ways to specify what javascript method should be called when
a form is submitted:</p>

<ul>
<li><a href="api/ng.directive:ngSubmit"><code>ngSubmit</code></a> directive on the form element</li>
<li><a href="api/ng.directive:ngClick"><code>ngClick</code></a> directive on the first
button or input field of type submit (input[type=submit])</li>
</ul>

<p>To prevent double execution of the handler, use only one of ngSubmit or ngClick directives. This
is because of the following form submission rules coming from the html spec:</p>

<ul>
<li>If a form has only one input field then hitting enter in this field triggers form submit
(<code>ngSubmit</code>)</li>
<li>if a form has has 2+ input fields and no buttons or input[type=submit] then hitting enter
doesn't trigger submit</li>
<li>if a form has one or more input fields and one or more buttons or input[type=submit] then
hitting enter in any of the input fields will trigger the click handler on the <em>first</em> button or
input[type=submit] (<code>ngClick</code>) <em>and</em> a submit handler on the enclosing form (<code>ngSubmit</code>)</li>
</ul></div>
<h2 id="Usage">Usage</h2>
<div class="usage">This directive can be used as custom element, but we aware of <a href="guide/ie">IE restrictions</a>.as element:<pre class="prettyprint linenums">&lt;form
       [name="{string}"]&gt;
&lt;/form&gt;</pre>
<h3 id="Parameters">Parameters</h3>
<ul class="parameters"><li><code ng:non-bindable="">name<i>(optional)</i> – {string=} – </code>
<p>Name of the form. If specified, the form controller will be published into
related scope, under this name.</p></li>
</ul>
</div>
<h2 id="Example">Example</h2>
<div class="example"><h4>Source</h4>
<div source-edit="" source-edit-deps="angular.js script.js" source-edit-html="index.html-99" source-edit-css="" source-edit-js="script.js-98" source-edit-unit="" source-edit-scenario="scenario.js-100"></div>
<div class="tabbable"><div class="tab-pane" title="index.html">
<pre class="prettyprint linenums" ng-set-text="index.html-99" ng-html-wrap=" angular.js script.js"></pre>
<script type="text/ng-template" id="index.html-99">
 
 <form name="myForm" ng-controller="Ctrl">
   userType: <input name="input" ng-model="userType" required>
   <span class="error" ng-show="myForm.input.$error.required">Required!</span><br>
   <tt>userType = {{userType}}</tt><br>
   <tt>myForm.input.$valid = {{myForm.input.$valid}}</tt><br>
   <tt>myForm.input.$error = {{myForm.input.$error}}</tt><br>
   <tt>myForm.$valid = {{myForm.$valid}}</tt><br>
   <tt>myForm.$error.required = {{!!myForm.$error.required}}</tt><br>
  </form>
</script>
</div>
<div class="tab-pane" title="script.js">
<pre class="prettyprint linenums" ng-set-text="script.js-98"></pre>
<script type="text/ng-template" id="script.js-98">
   function Ctrl($scope) {
     $scope.userType = 'guest';
   }
 </script>
</div>
<div class="tab-pane" title="End to end test">
<pre class="prettyprint linenums" ng-set-text="scenario.js-100"></pre>
<script type="text/ng-template" id="scenario.js-100">
  it('should initialize to model', function() {
   expect(binding('userType')).toEqual('guest');
   expect(binding('myForm.input.$valid')).toEqual('true');
  });

  it('should be invalid if empty', function() {
   input('userType').enter('');
   expect(binding('userType')).toEqual('');
   expect(binding('myForm.input.$valid')).toEqual('false');
  });
</script>
</div>
</div><h4>Demo</h4>
<div class="well doc-example-live" ng-embed-app="" ng-set-html="index.html-99" ng-eval-javascript="script.js-98"></div></div>
</div>
